BUSINESS

Nova - 15 Years of Experience in the Georgian Market of Construction and Repair Materials

BY ARCHIL GELASHVILI. TRANSLATED BY KETEVAN SKHIRTLADZE

In the Georgian reality, the construction-repair materials industry has become both progressive and competitive. The expansion of the development sector and the growing demand in this market have pushed manufacturers and suppliers to move to a fundamentally different standard and follow trends. Clearly, establishing oneself as a leader in such a saturated space is not an easy task, and to achieve this, companies have to create and realize competitive advantages. Those who have been involved in construction and renovation, will have likely heard of the company ‘Nova,’ which, with its daring attitude, timely solutions, and competitive offers, has earned the status of one of the leading players in the market.

Nova appeared on the Georgian market of construction and repair materials in 2006. Initially, the business started with fi ve friends importing and selling building materials, which later led to the founding of one of the largest and fastestgrowing organizations.

Five years after the start of the operation, in 2011, Nova started producing materials itself and continues to actively modernize and expand the process to this day. The products produced by the company are presented in a wide range and include polyethylene tanks, roofi ng materials, plasterboard and metal profi les, water barriers, and various accessories. In exclusive representation, Nova cooperates with such brands as NIPPON PAINT Group: BETEK, FAWORI; SAINT GOBAIN Group: IZOCAM, RIGIPS; INGCO, and BIEN.

In 2020, Nova opened three retail centers in Tbilisi, Batumi, and Kutaisi, where more than 50,000 products are presented.

Production is an important driving force for the economic development of the country, and Nova is trying to contribute to this direction. Where, in the past, the inscription "Made in Georgia" did not deserve the benevolence of the consumer and often meant a lack of trust, today this trend is developing with positive dynamics. People are now attracted to products made in Georgia, especially when they are of high quality and competitive price.

That is why, since 2011, Nova makes sure to introduce and develop production lines. At the initial stage, the company started working on roofi ng materials of different colors, sizes, and shapes in the Tbilisi enterprise. Within a year, it also started to produce plasterboard profi les and accessories, and in 2014, the Batumi plant began production of polyethylene water tanks, paint, and plastering angles.

Nova expanded its production line of roofi ng materials again in 2015, and its gypsum board profi les in 2016 at its Batumi branch.

Since 2017, the company has made the production of gypsum-cardboard and metal-plastic profi les in line with European standards, and, due to the increase in market demand, the production line of polyethylene tanks has further increased.

Today, Nova's products include more than 100 types of polyethylene tanks, siding and siding accessories, more than 30 types of roofi ng materials and accessories, and more than 40 types of plasterboard and metal profi les.

In 2020, Nova equipped its enterprises with new painting equipment, which tripled the existing productivity. Also last year, it started the production of accessories for drainage systems.

Georgian products made by Nova, as well as imported exclusive products, will be available to customers in three mega centers and online platforms across the country.

Taking care of customer satisfaction and improving the customer experience is the main vector of any successful business; however, success is largely on the shoulders of a company’s employees. That is why Nova provides more than 600 people employed in the company with the opportunity for professional growth, motivation, and stimulation, and constantly takes care of creating acceptable, pleasant conditions for employees. "Stimulating employee motivation in different ways and fi nding the correct ways is an inspiration in itself, because each person knows better what gives them the energy that is in harmony with their inner motivation,” says Edisher Khimshiashvili, General Director of Nova. “In order for this motivation not to become counterproductive, we need to fi nd a connection between their own values, work, and professional environment. The comfortable arrangement of workspaces for employees, the availability of leisure and ‘unloading’ spaces, various incentive rewards and bonuses, sports activities and entertainment events are all accepted practices which we actively use in Nova, but all this sometimes is still not enough to motivate."

As such, to increase the enthusiasm of employees and their productivity, to contribute to their professional growth, and to mark the need and value of their work, the company uses three ways: ● Employees are actively involved in the operations of the company and no one restricts their freedom in decision making; ● They are able to enhance self-effi cacy by using the transparency of the results achieved and the correct feedback; ● The company trusts the competence of its employees and creates a work environment where the individual achievement of any professional is properly valued.

This is a small list of the tools that Nova’s management team uses to stimulate the professional motivation of its employees, but these three approaches help people build closer ties with the company and perceive themselves as members of a larger family.

The company Nova aimed to create the best online store in 2021, andare actively working on it. On the Nova online platform, aside from construction and repair materials, all the products that one can fi nd in the mega centers are presented.

Khimshiashvili told us about the dynamics of the company's digital channel development and the importance of working in this direction.

“The Nova team works on a daily basis to improve our website. We want to offer online visitors the products they want, which will be combined with comprehensive digital content, photos, and videos. First of all, we try to make our page simple, fast, sophisticated, and customized. We think this is the most important thing,” he says. “Our goal is to make our potential customers loyal to the site, to offer them any information they need, and to make online shopping a pleasant experience.”

The Nova online store combines both construction and repair materials, as well as a wide selection of different household products in one space. As a company states, this platform will greatly simplify the process of repair and improvement for customers. Nova tries to satisfy the need of its customers as much as possible, to offer them fast delivery service and high-quality products without their needing to leave home.

“We monitor customer behavior and take into account their needs, assessments, and feedback. Although our online store has only recently appeared in the digital space, we have gained a lot of loyal and satisfi ed customers, and we believe that we will continue to do so in the future. Our team will do everything for continuous growth and development,” Khimshiashvili noted.

SOCIETY EU Steps up Vaccine Support in Eastern Partnership Countries

On 10 August, the European Commission increased its assistance package to deploy safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines in the Eastern Partnership from €40 million to €75 million. This additional funding will speed up the vaccination campaigns in the six Eastern partner countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova, and Ukraine.

With this new €35 million assistance package, the EU seeks to substantially increase access to vaccines in the Eastern Partnership region, facilitating vaccine sharing by the EU Member States and reimbursing the cost. This assistance complements the EU’s support to the COVAX initiative, the world’s facility to ensure fair and universal access to COVID19 vaccines.

The fi rst package of support worth €40 million was launched in February 2021 to strengthen preparedness and local readiness for safe and effective vaccination of the population, in partnership with the World Health Organization. EU support included training of health managers and medical staff involved in the vaccination campaign, key logistical support for the delivery and handling of the vaccines and supplies, vaccination data and safety monitoring, communication and community engagement, as well as support for the development of a digital COVID certifi cate.

“The EU is determined to support our Eastern neighbors to speed up vaccination as this will be decisive for ending the pandemic and launching the socioeconomic recovery of the region. We care for our partners,” Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, Olivér Várhelyi said. The newly adopted programme is part of Team Europe’s global COVID-19 response and builds on the joint efforts with the Member States and the EU cooperation with the WHO. The EU and WHO are working together on the €35 million Solidarity for Health Initiative in the Eastern Partnership, providing substantial medical supplies across the region, including over 11 million items of personal protective equipment, 12,000 lab kits, over 1,500 ventilators, oxygen concentrators, and pulse oximeters, and over 20,000 PCR testing kits.

Witnessing the Fall of the USSR

Continued from page 1

His hands and ears—surely not real! The concrete jungle of apartment blocks in this huge city. The sombreness of people's public faces, then their deep friendliness when you got to know them at home.

Great Russian Soul. My fi rst taste of Soviet vanilla ice cream in those "stakanchiki" (integral cones), on a hot day when we needed it most—so creamily delicious! Solzhenitsyn, whose writings had inspired me to go to the USSR in the fi rst place, peering over my shoulder from his American exile and warning me to remember the Gulag Archipelago, not yet sunk. Daring to take a single photograph of the ominous Big Lubyanka, which I found—thanks again to Aleksandr Isayevich—next to a huge toy shop. The speed of the Metro, unparalleled and so effi cient for getting across the city, though best avoided at Chas Pik (Rush Hour). The feeling of being under something heavy, yet revelling in the strangeness of it all, privilege of seeing and experiencing it as was. Needing to be shepherded around lest we get lost, not knowing a word of Russian.

I had left Canada in late December 1989, and was staying with relatives in England when the Romanian Revolution erupted. Christmas Day, the world watching the executions of Ceaucescu and his wife, live on TV. Surreal. The machine guns cut them down while they were speaking, not so much pleading as simply protesting the audacity of it all. Then the rest of the Eastern Bloc came tumbling down, one country after another abandoning what Moscow had forced upon them. But we had not dared to imagine that it could happen in the USSR, Communism's Ground Zero, as soon as it did. Nor could we fathom the changes to come in the world from then until now. Who could?

August 19th was our month’s secondlast day in the great old capital. That afternoon, I had taken the Metro towards the center of Moscow, alone for once, to fi nish off my last roll of fi lm before we left. I got more than I bargained for.

Crowds of people outside Red Square, itself blocked from public entry on all sides by buses. Tanks at various locations near the Square as well. Some people listening to those addressing them through megaphones, perched on top of whatever could give them some height advantage, especially any kind of vehicle. For the fi rst time, I was seeing not the USSR's gold hammer/sickle on its red background, but other fl ags which I didn't recognize: Russia’s tricolour, those of the other Union Republics. I couldn’t follow any of the Russian, but another foreigner told me the gossip—Gorbachev taken ill in his Black Sea dacha, hardliners taking over, sick of his attempted reforms to their precious pure communism. He said to take care where I was shooting. But others there were also photographing. I knew it was history, and that I'd better take my chances, not miss the moment, even though news reportage has never been my strongest genre to shoot. I continued, remembering but having to ignore the video cameras mounted on poles turning silently this way and that, Big Brother watching us as we recorded.

Instead of needing to fi nish that fi lm, I now needed to buy more, which I was able somehow to do in a nearby shop. Just one more roll was all I had money for.

Outside Manezh Square, some people were standing atop a trolleybus which they had removed from its overhead wires. Great vantage point, and also a useful place from which to speak. How I wish now that I understood Russian then! Others were arguing with the tank commanders who, unknown to me, were caught between following orders—disperse this mess however you have to—and avoiding a bloodbath. Mercifully, they took the latter path at last, or it could have been horrendous. There were only a handful of deaths recorded in all, accidental. It could have been so much worse.

Someone running through the crowds distributing leafl ets as he went, or rather letting people grab them out of his hands. I acquired one—a photocopied communiqué from above, from the coup's engineers.

I followed the crowds for a while, to stay with the action. No idea where we were headed, but our goal as it happened was the so-called Russian White House,

where someone had unrolled a huge Russian fl ag to cheers Yeltsin.

Somehow, I managed a call to our host family from a pay phone (no mobile phones in those days!), and told my friends what was happening. They found me early that evening, as the light was failing and my ability to take any more photographs was ending, with no fl ash. We spent a bit more time together there, then went home for our last evening in the Soviet Union, full of questions and uncertainties.

The next morning, August 20th, all was too calm. We fl ew out to Budapest on schedule. I had nine rolls of fi lm from our month in my trouser pockets, and was ready to do whatever I could not to have them x-rayed or taken away at Sheremetyevo Airport. Neither happened, and I felt like my pockets were full of gold. They were handing out copies of yesterday's Pravda on the plane... the last one went to the person sitting next to me. Fool for not being bold enough to beg a copy of that historic edition from anyone!

Budapest after austere Moscow was the West.

August 21st: we were with other friends in rural Austria discussing the events when the phone rang. News: It was over! Yeltsin had saved the day! Hard-line communism had lost! Euphoria the world over, especially in the USA: too soon, blissfully ignorant of what was coming.

A week or so later I had my fi lm developed in the UK, and ten sets of prints made from the main black and white roll of the coup. Those, and a few colour slides, were my record of that fateful day. My photographic mentor made a few prints by hand for me in his darkroom as well. Several frames appeared in a local paper, with a brief story.

For months, back in Canada, I was obsessed with collecting all local newspaper stories of the new order emerging in the soon to be FORMER USSR. This entity indeed by order of Gorbachev ceased to exist on December 25th, 1991, along with his own job. The 15 Union Republics automatically became sovereign states; subunits with a big grudge like Chechnya were less successful, and chaos fl ourished alongside a few simultaneous wars and the growing hyperin-

fl ation. The sowing was over, but the reaping must follow.

I returned to Russia to live, in Petersburg, September 1992, where I based myself until mid-1999. It was there during ethnographic studies that I fi rst discovered the other peoples of the former Soviet Union... and the Caucasus... and the Svans, whose description was exactly the reason I found myself itching to visit Georgia. Then I moved fi rst to Baku and then to Tbilisi, with 4 days in Svaneti part of the package. Early on in those Russian years, my precious coup 35mm fi lm rolls—and many others, all of course irreplaceable—were stolen from my Petersburg apartment, leaving me with only the prints which I had had made, and the handful of slides.

Tony Hanmer has lived in Georgia since 1999, in Svaneti since 2007, and been a weekly writer and photographer for GT since early 2011. He runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with nearly 2000 members, at www.facebook.com/ groups/SvanetiRenaissance/ He and his wife also run their own guest house in Etseri: www.facebook.com/hanmer.house.svaneti